Christian Jacob Hayes - Two Weeks Old

Grammy has posted her last pictures of Christian.

Christian Comfortable in Daddy's Hand

Grammy, diligent as ever, has released her pictures of Christian at one week old.  He is doing well, and mommy and daddy seem to be all smiles and love.

Christian Jacob Hayes

I am proud to announce that I have my second grand-baby in arms today!

He was born yesterday, August 11, 2010 at about 11:39 PM.  He weighed in at 8 lb 3 oz, and is a wonderful 21 inches long.

Here is a photo-log of the last day or so.

Daddy & Mommy Eagerly Anticipating Christian's Arrival

Contraction Action

Grammy got the call from Jon and Michelle yesterday morning that they went to the doctor and were headed for the hospital. It wasn’t long before it was determined that they would not be sent home and that Christian would be coming that day. Fairly early on Michelle was given an epidural, which enabled her to go through labor without much of a notice of the pain and feeling of the contractions. However, her body continued to do its work.

Mommy had to catch her breath during labor!

The family gathered to wish the growing family well – Even Great Grandma and Grandpa Hayes!

As the time grew closer, things got more intense for both Mommy and Daddy!  In the last couple of hours things went much faster, and became somewhat difficult at the end. Michelle was wonderful about it all, but it was still a little scary and exhausting. Jon was, it is reported by all, a big help and was instrumental in getting the medical staff back into the delivery room at the right time – just 5 minutes before Christian was born!

Getting Close Now!

Proud Father!

Moments after Christian was born Jon came out to the family in the waiting room and announced that the happy moment had arrived. He was still shaken by the ordeal – but happy that baby and mommy we doing fine!  Shortly thereafter we all were allowed just a few minutes with the new family.

Daddy showing Christian to his twin brother, Uncle Ben

Gracie & Grandfather's First Look At Christian

Uncle Adam and Daddy

Grandfather and the handsome little guy!

Grandfather's Newest Little Monkey!

Happy Grammy

Uncle Ben

Uncle Adam Finally Gets to Hold Christian!

Proud Father and Grandfather Looking At The Family Joy!

After everyone left for the night, not surprisingly, Grammy stayed up all night to help with the baby. She let Mommy and Daddy sleep and held the baby for about 4 hours straight.

Grammy Loves Christian!

After about 5-10 minutes most everyone was asked to leave to get some rest, and to let Mommy have some time with Christian. The nurse said that it was “skin to skin time.”

Christian Is A Very Happy and Contented Little Guy

Daddy and Christian Napping the Next Morning

Uncle David

Aunt Kathy

Aunt Gracie: "Uh, you're so cute!

"I have a cousin!"

"How fun, he's so little I can steal his toys!"

How Sweet!

Hello Mommy - Nice to Finally SEE You!

“You are He who took Me out of the womb;

You made Me trust while on My mother’s breasts.

I was cast upon You from birth.

From My mother’s womb You have been My God.” Psalm 22:9-10

Mother Love

Amara's Already 10 Months Old

Grammy is at it again – Here is the latest installment of Amy’ s monthly chronicle of Amara’s growth and cuteness.

Amara’s 10 month old Grammy pics

David Spears & Brandon King

For the last two Saturdays I had the opportunity to return to the John Day river for bass fishing. Last weekend I went with David Spears & Brandon King and had a wonderful time.

David In The Fast Water

It was hot, the water was great, the fishing was good and the fellowship was fine!

Yesterday I had one of the very best days ever on the river! I had the pleasure of having both Amy and my good friend and brother-in-law Mitch Teixeira go with me.

Mitch & Amy

Between the three of us we caught nearly 400 bass!!!  We had to make ourselves quit.

Only One of Mitch's 126 Fish Landed!

At one point in Amy’s life she aspired to be a nurse. Now she takes care of me and the kids. Yesterday she styled herself as a bass surgeon doing her very best to remove hooks without damaging the poor things.

Amy's Surgical Technique

Believe it or not – I think all of the 104 fish she caught survived – At least they swam away!

Amy's Catch

What an unbelievable blessing it is to have a wife who is also your fishing buddy!

May God bless me with many such days as these – and with such beloved friends!

Michelle is getting within about a month of the birth of my second Grand-baby, pre-named: Christian Jacob Hayes.

Although mommy is eager and uncomfortable – and daddy is insufferable – She is lovely and happy.

Of course Grammy’s appetite for taking baby pictures extends to pre-birth anticipations – She went out this week with Michelle and took about 400 pictures to show the beauty of a pregnant woman.  Here is a sample of some of them.

Mother's Dream

Life Is Good

Stairway to Heaven

Reflections

Fully Nested - Ready To Bring Christian Home

Beautiful "Christian" Warmly Anticipated

Cousin Amara Looking Forward to Christian's Arrival

The Beauty of Motherhood

The rest of the pictures

My dear wife had it in her mind that she wanted to throw me a grand party to celebrate my 50th birthday.  Since the big day was during family camp – she planned the party for the Saturday following camp – June 26th. We met at one of my old haunts – Old Town Pizza (which still has the same fantastic ambiance).

It was a wonderful time of friendship and fellowship and a great blessing to me! She had invited several people to offer words of encouragement, which was most appreciated. Amy made a time line of my life with pictures and information about me that would be little known to some folks. She created a picture album to commemorate the event!

Thanks to all who made it such a marvelous time!

Here’s a few more glimspes of Amara’s 1st Family Camp…
David discovered Amara’s new favorite sport!

If you look at the Family Camp pictures you can see how happy she was anytime she got on that grass. After this, she didn’t want to sit with anyone. She wanted down!

This one is a little wonky at the end – the camera shows the recording as all right side up, but apparently it didn’t record that way!

For those of you that wait so eagerly and patiently to see Grammy’s pictures of Amara – Here she is at 9 months.

Amara at 9 Months on daddy's new front porch!

Grammy has now released her top 80 Family Camp pictures.  Notice anything as a prominent theme, or her primary interest at camp??

Last night, at one point while looking at all of these pictures Grammy called out, “OOOOOOoooo I do love that child!”

Grammy is so fun!

It is always so much fun to be with children when they experience firsts in their lives. Oh boy! ice cream at the Tillamook Cheese Factory was fun. It was part of my 50th Birthday celebration!!!

She liked it so much she just attacked it!

What a messy fun time it was!!!

"Wow - Now that's what I'm talking about!"

My dear wife sent me this link to Nancy Wilson’s recent blog post in Femina: Courtship In the Air. In this post she links to two other posts by her husband, Doug Wilson, from which he suggests 21 Questions to prospective suitors and prospective wives. These are great questions and well worth remembering when your time comes to ask them!

David and Kathy's Wedding

I have advocated a “courtship”  model (whatever that means)  of approaching marriage, and have found that the whole discussion seems to invite more questions than it answers. I still think it is a helpful discussion because it causes people to think more self-consciously about how we can help our children think about the future as they prepare for marriage, what kind of relationship we hope to have with them during the process of finding and deciding on marriage, and help them to be wise and godly as they choose their spouse.

Many years ago after a long conversation with some friends about that I think about courtship I wrote a paper called an Outline of the Journey to Marriage. I have gone over it with my children to help us talk about various issues related to courtship. I don’t believe this is “THE” way to do courtship; I don’t believe there are scriptures that can be used to support every point I made; I don’t think it is for every family. But I do think there may possibly be some reasonable and wise ideas that some folks may find useful.

Every month Grammy has been taking pictures of Amara to show her growth and development.

The Happy Graduate

What a great night for the Reformation Covenant Church Graduating Class of 2010!

Peter, Nick, Ken, Kaitlyn, Charity, Grace and Ana

Grace had the opportunity to give a speech at her graduation, and did a wonderful job!

I’m so proud of her!!!

Grace's Inspiring Speech

The parents of graduating students of Reformation Covenant Church typically say a few words of encouragement and praise. Here is the video on my comments to Grace:

My dear Grace – Amy and I are so proud of you and so joyful that we have come to this point in your life. I mean that not merely in the sense that every one of us parents will say it today – I mean it in the sense that I am deeply, passionately and compulsively pleased with you. You are everything at I would wish for in a daughter, and can safely say that my prayers for you and about you have been answered by the Lord more abundantly and beautifully than I would have guessed possible.

The occasion of your graduation is a marvelous time to recognize and celebrate your educational and academic accomplishments – which I consider to be significant.

I encourage everyone to stop by Grace’s table downstairs and take a look at some of the wonderful things she has accomplished – and I’m telling you, the research paper on Conjoined Twins is not to be missed. She has read dozens of excellent books, completed a full series of mathematics and science (including Anatomy and Physiology this year), she is an excellent writer (especially her humorous writing), seriously studied various areas of biblical theology, and memorized several whole books of the Bible. Let it never be said that home schoolers cannot get a good education.

I want to pause to thank Amy for the tremendous job she has done – you are a marvel.

Now as impressive as all of this is, Grace, what brings me even more joy and satisfaction is the fact that you are a young woman of great character and strength and compassion.

You are someone that has long understood that the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord. From your earliest days it was clear to me that you are a unique – a special and exceptional child of God. It’s not just that you were compliant and needed little discipline (which is all true) – it was and remains that you have always been eager to please your parents, serve other people (even your demanding brothers) and love and fear the Lord Jesus.

It is no less true today. You have been growing and developing marvelously and you have made a wonderful beginning of life. But today is just the end of the beginning. You are now ready to move on – taking all that you have learned, and taking all that you have done to prepare yourself, and begin to explore how you will best serve our dear savior as a mature adult.

You are indeed a beautiful, intelligent, funny, resourceful, teachable, and marvelously servant oriented young woman. As you, over the next few years, move into adulthood – my hope and prayer is that you will not just drift along with the current of life, but you will go forth from this night with confidence and conviction that God wants to use you in this world to His glory and for the betterment of humanity.

Proverbs poses the rhetorical question: Who can find a woman of noble character, a woman of moral worth, a virtuous woman, a mighty woman of valor? Such a one is hard to find in this world because she is so valuable, so rare, so worthy of honor and praise that she can only be compared to rubies.

My dear, You are such a one! You are a special treasure to me and to everyone who knows you.

You are one of the greatest joys in our lives – we love you more than life itself. Congratulations and well done, my beloved daughter, in whom I am well pleased!

Commencment Address by Pastor Chris Wilson

I think Amara won this one!!!